IMAGES IN EMERGENCY MEDICINE
Suspension airbags: a potential danger
Maxillofacial Unit, Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, Shrewsbury, UK
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
O Chawla
67 Underwood Road, Handsworth Wood, Birmingham B20 1JR, UK; ourvchawla79@hotmail.com
Accepted 27 March 2006
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Trauma as a result of airbag deployment is not uncommon. A cursory glance at the literature shows reports of skeletal, otological, ophthalmic, vascular, cardiac, respiratory and neurological trauma, burns and even death after airbag deployment. These injuries have usually been sustained as a result of failure or misuse of airbags used in restraint systems.
Few people are familiar with suspension airbags. These high-pressure devices reside beneath vehicles and provide shock absorption (fig 1
). The considerably increased pressure in these airbags, 300 psi or greater, renders their misuse extremely dangerous.
Figure 1 Intact suspension airbag.
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We present a case of a spontaneously rupturing suspension airbag resulting in serious facial trauma.
A 53-year-old man was attempting to repair the suspension airbag of his heavy goods vehicle when the airbag spontaneously ruptured, injuring his mid- and lower face (fig 2). The patient sustained major facial lacerations, a fractured mandible, multiple dentoalveolar fractures and
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